It is a common occurrence to lose commercial power during violent thunderstorms, hurricanes, and earthquakes. When there is a commercial power failure, for whatever reason, customers sometimes utilize portable generators to run electricity into their homes until the commercial power can be restored. However, using a generator in a home wired for commercial power can be dangerous if all safety precautions are not followed. Unfortunately, many homeowners do not follow all of the safety precautions and simply plug their generators into an outlet in their home to supply power to the rest of the home. This causes a dangerous condition known as backfeed. Backfeed refers to unauthorized power feeding from a home or other building into the commercial power grid. This is extremely dangerous to the workers whose job it is to repair the commercial power grid. These workers do not expect there to be any power in the commercial power grid while they are working on it. Thus, the existence of power on the grid due to backfeed can seriously injure those whose job it is to repair the commercial power grid.
Homeowners that do follow the requisite safety precautions when using a portable generator must adhere to a rigorous protocol that includes specialized switching, transfer boxes, and separate wiring. These precautions are necessary to protect both the commercial power grid from backfeed and the homeowner's own electrical equipment.
What is needed is an apparatus that protects the commercial power grid from backfeed while eliminating the specialized equipment currently required to safely run a generator during a commercial power failure.